A woman escaped an explosion after an e-cigarette plugged into a faulty charger set her family home on fire.

The woman was alerted to the blaze in an upstairs bedroom of the house in Ringwood, Hampshire, by her smoke alarm - which had only had its battery changed the previous week.

She managed to escape downstairs before the explosion, caused by the heating of a pressurised canister of an air horn that was in the room.

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The socket where the USB charged had been plugged in before overheating and setting alight in the bedroom

A laptop can be seen in the centre of the room, pictured in the aftermath of the explosion in Hampshire

The blaze is the latest in a string of incidents in the UK thought to be caused by cheap or faulty chargers

Investigators from Hampshire Fire and Rescue Service traced the fire’s ignition to a USB plug charging an e-cigarette.

Dan Tasker, group manager from the service, said: ‘We discovered that the woman’s son had lost the charger that came with the e-cigarette kit he had bought, so he had plugged it into a different USB charger and then gone out.

‘This then overheated and caught light to the bedding, and the fire then caused the canister to expand and explode.’

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He added: ‘Plugs need to be appropriate for the device they are charging and not all can be transferred between devices.

‘The consequences of using the wrong charger with the wrong device can be devastating and we are extremely relieved that on this occasion no-one was harmed.’

GROWING CONCERN: E-CIGARETTES LINKED TO SERIES OF FIRES

In April an e-cigarette exploded in a bar and engulfed a teenage barmaid at Buck Inn Hotel in Richmond, North Yorkshire. It started after a colleague plugged his e-cigarette into his iPad charger.

The following week a woman from Barking, London was hospitalised after plugging her e-cigarette to charge in a mains socket.

A mother-of-two who left an e-cigarette on charge in car for 10 minutes left her back seat completely melted and had black smoke billowing from the vehicle. No one was injured in the incident in Derbyshire.

In May a mother had to flee her flat with her two children after a charging e-cigarette set her Birmingham flat on fire.

In the same month a woman was left badly burnt when her e-cigarette burst into flames after she plugged into an Apple USB socket while she slept at her home in Pemrokeshire.

A family were left devastated last month after their home was gutted by an e-cigarette which exploded, and killed the neighbour's cat in Greater Manchester.

It is the latest in a string of incidents in the UK involving the use of cheap or inappropriate chargers.

In May, a Welsh woman was burned after her e-cigarette exploded when it was plugged into her phone charger and a barmaid in North Yorkshire was also injured earlier this year when a charging e-cigarette overheated.

While
e-cigarettes can be susceptible to overheating due to the type of
battery they contain, Hampshire’s Trading Standards have stressed the
importance of using the right charger for all devices and raise
awareness of the dangers of cheap alternatives.

A
spokesman from Hampshire County Council Trading Standards said: ‘The
message is do not buy cheap or unbranded chargers for use with
e-cigarettes, mobile phones or any other devices. They are invariably
dangerous and illegal.

‘At
the least, they are capable of destroying your device. At worst, they
have the potential to give a fatal electric shock or cause a very
serious house fire.

‘Our
officers regularly stop and destroy large quantities of unsafe chargers
as part of their work at ports. This is a widespread problem, with many
being sold through internet sellers.

‘Always make sure that the rated output of your charger is matched to the product you are charging.’

Electronic cigarettes are said to be 'susceptible to overheating due to the type of battery they contain'